The two classes in Israel are distinctly marked here in contrast
with one another, with the addition of the walk which the Christian
ought to pursue when chastised by the Lord.

The apostle gives the coming of the Lord as the term of their
condition, both to the unbelieving rich oppressors in Israel, and to
the poor believing remnant. The rich have heaped up treasures for
the last days; the oppressed poor are to be patient until the Lord
Himself shall come to deliver them. Moreover, he says, deliverance
would not be delayed. The husbandman waits for the rain and the time
of harvest; the Christian for his Master's coming. This patience
characterises, as we have seen, the walk of faith. It had been
witnessed in the prophets; and in the case of others we count them
happy which endure afflictions for the Lord's sake. Job shows us the
ways of the Lord: he needed to have patience, but the end of the
Lord was blessing and tender mercy towards him.

This expectation of the coming of the Lord was a solemn warning, and at the same time the strongest encouragement, but one which maintained the true character of the Christian's practical life. It showed also what the selfishness of man's will would end in, and it restrained all action of that will in believers. The feelings of brethren towards each other were placed under the safeguard of this same truth. They were not to have a spirit of discontent, or to murmur against others who were perhaps more favoured in their outward circumstances: "the judge stood before the door." -- Oaths displayed still more the forgetfulness of God, and the actings consequently of the self-will of nature. "Yea," ought to be yea, and "Nay," nay. The actings of the divine nature in the consciousness of the presence of God, and the repression of all human will and of sinful nature, is what the writer of this epistle desires.

Now there were resources in Christianity both for joy and sorrow. If any were afflicted, let them pray (God was ready to hear); if happy, let them sing; if sick, send for the elders of the assembly, who would pray for the sufferer and anoint him, and the chastisement would be removed, and the sins for which, according to God's government, he was thus chastised, would be forgiven as regards that government; for it is that only which is here spoken of.

The imputation of sin for condemnation has no place here. The
efficacy of the prayer of faith is set before us; but it is in
connection with the maintenance of sincerity of heart. The government
of God is exercised with regard to His people. He chastises them by
sickness; and it is important that truth in the inner man should be
maintained. Men hide their faults; they desire to walk as if all were
going on well; but God judges His people. He tries the heart and the
reins. They are held in bonds of affliction. God shows them their
faults, or their unbroken self-will. Man "is chastened also with
pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong
pain," Job 33: 19. And now the church of God intervenes in
charity, and according to its own order, by means of the elders; the
sick man commits himself to God, confessing his state of need; the
charity of the church acts and brings him who is chastised, according
to this relationship, before God -- for that is where the church
is. Faith pleads this relationship of grace; the sick man is
healed. If sins -- and not merely the need of discipline -- were the
cause of his chastisement, those sins will not hinder his being
healed, they shall be forgiven him.

The apostle then presents the principle in general as the course
for all, namely, to open their hearts to each other, in order to
maintain truth in the inner man as to oneself; and to pray for each
other in order that charity should be in full exercise with regard to
the faults of others; grace and truth being thus spiritually formed in
the church, and a perfect union of heart among Christians, so that
even their faults are an occasion for the exercise of charity (as in
God towards us), and entire confidence in each other, according to
that charity, such as is felt towards a restoring and pardoning
God. What a beautiful picture is presented of divine principles
animating men and causing them to act according to the nature of God
Himself, and the influence of His love upon the heart.

We may remark, that it is not confession to the elders that is
spoken of. That would have been confidence in men -- official
confidence. God desires the operation of divine charity in
all. Confession to one another shows the condition of the church, and
God would have the church to be in such a state, that love should so
reign in it, that they should be so near to God, as to be able to
treat the transgressor according to the grace they know in Him: and
that this love should be so realised, that perfect inward sincerity
should be produced by the confidence and operation of grace. Official
confession destroys all this -- is contrary to it. How divine the
wisdom which omitted confession when speaking of the elders, but which
commands it as the living and voluntary impression of the heart! --
This leads us also to the value of the energetic prayers of the
righteous man. It is his nearness to God, the sense that he has
consequently of that which God is, which (through grace and the
operation of the Spirit) gives him this power. God takes account of
men, and that according to the infinitude of His love. He takes
account of the trust in Himself, the faith in His word, shown by one
who thinks and acts according to a just appreciation of what He
is. That is always faith, which makes sensible to us that which we do
not see -- God Himself, who acts in accordance with the revelation
that He has given of Himself. Now the man who in the practical sense
is righteous through grace, is near to God; as being righteous, he has
not to do with God for himself with regard to sin, which would keep
his heart at a distance; his heart is thus free to draw nigh to God,
according to His holy nature on behalf of others; and, moved by the
divine nature, which animates him and which enables him to appreciate
God, he seeks, according to the activity of that nature, that his
prayers may prevail with God, whether for the good of others or for
the glory of God Himself in his service. And God answers, according to
that same nature, by blessing this trust and responding to it, in
order to manifest what He is for faith, to encourage it by sanctioning
its activity, putting His seal on the man who walks by faith.* -- {*It
is well to remember that this is carried out in respect of the
governing ways of God, and thus under the title of Lord -- a place
which Christ specially holds, though here the term is used
generally. Compare verse 11, and the general Jewish reference of the
passage. To us we have one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus
Christ. He is become Lord and Christ, and every tongue shall confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord.}

The Spirit of God acts, we know, in all this; but the apostle does
not here speak of Him, being occupied with the practical effect, and
presenting the man as he is seen, acting under the influence of this
nature in its positive energy with regard to God, and near to Him, so
that it acts in all its intensity, moved by the power of that
nearness. But if we consider the action of the Spirit, these thoughts
are confirmed. The righteous man does not grieve the Holy Ghost, and
the Spirit works in him according to His own power, not having to set
his conscience right with God, but acting in the man according to the
power of his communion.

Finally, we have the assurance that the ardent and energetic prayer
of the righteous man has great efficacy: it is the prayer of faith,
which knows God and counts upon Him and draws near Him.

The case of Elijah is interesting, as showing us (and there are
other examples of the same kind) how the Holy Ghost acts inwardly in a
man where we see the outward manifestation of power. In the history we
have Elijah's declaration: "Jehovah liveth, there shall not be
dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." This is the
authority, the power, exercised in the name of Jehovah. In our epistle
the secret operation, that which passes between the soul and God, is
set forth. He prayed, and God heard him. We have the same testimony on
the part of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. Only that in the latter case
we have the two together, except that the prayer itself is not given
-- unless in the unutterable groan of Christ's spirit.

Comparing Galatians 2 with the history of Acts 15, we find a
revelation from God which determined Paul's conduct, whatever outward
motives there may have been which were known to all. By such cases as
those which the apostle proposes to the church, and those of Elijah
and the Lord Jesus, a God, living, acting, and interesting Himself in
all that happens among His people, is revealed to us.

There is also the activity of love towards those who err. If any
one departs from the truth, and they bring him back by grace, let
it be known that to bring back a sinner from the error of his ways
is the exercise -- simple as our action in it may be -- of the
power that delivers a soul from death; accordingly all those sins
which spread themselves in their odious nature before the eyes of
God, and offended His glory and His heart by their presence in His
universe, are covered. The soul being brought to God by grace, all
its sins are pardoned, appear no more, are blotted out from before
the face of God. The apostle (as throughout) does not speak of the
power that acts in this work of love, but of the fact. He applies
it to cases that had happened among them; but he establishes a
universal principle with regard to the activity of grace in the
heart that is animated by it. The erring soul is saved; the sin is
put away from before God.

Charity in the assembly suppresses, so to speak, the sins which otherwise would destroy union and overcome that charity in the assembly, and appear in all their deformity and all their malignancy before God. Whereas, being met by love in the assembly, they go no farther, are, as it were (as regards the state of things before God in this world), dissolved and put away by the charity which they could not vanquish. The sin is vanquished by the love which dealt with it, disappears, is swallowed up by it. Thus love covers a multitude of sins. Here it is its action in the conversion of a sinner.